Jiroh's Freedom
by mayze
Summary: Jiroh dreams...


**A/n – **Reposted this together with my other fics because I (finally) realized some of the "…"s weren't showing and how to get them to. ^^;

**A/N – **Thanks to everyone who reviewed my previous fics! I'm sorry the formatting of my stories are so… Um… Plain. I still have no idea how to make the letters bold, change the font size or italicize them. Any assistance is greatly welcomed! And here's another fic. Enjoy! =)  
  
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Jiroh's Freedom

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Jiroh dreams a lot. With the amount of sleep he gets, he has to. He doesn't remember his dreams though. Who does? There is one dream, however, that is always familiar. One dream that recurs though he never realises it.

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Jiroh blinked. He had fallen asleep on the bleachers again, which wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the fact that he had woken up. The Hyotei tennis players knew better then to wake Jiroh for anything less then club dismissal or a match. They would just waste their time, energy and patience since he would simply go back to sleep. He looked around him with bleary eyes. Nope. No one was near enough to wake him, intentionally or otherwise, so… He yawned and rolled over, ready to sleep again. Then he saw the match. His impossibly egoistical captain, Atobe Keigo, was playing against Seigaku's impossibly stoic captain, Tezuka Kunimitsu.

He lobbed.

Jiroh followed the ball's flight, fascinated. The ball rose in a beautiful arc, fast and free against the beautiful azure sky. Jiroh smiled, then he yawned and went back to sleep.

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It has been said that dreams are subconscious manifestations of personal desires and fears. Problems arise when you try to interpret your dreams. What does this mean? Do I really want this? Am I really scared of that? Is this what I fear and desire, both? Jiroh never tries to analyze his dreams. He is too busy dreaming other dreams.

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Jiroh woke again, for no reason that he could see. Atobe was still playing against Tezuka in what would become the legendary never-ending tie-break. He ignored the people around him as usual and looked at the ongoing match. He didn't see the players, though. He only followed the ball's path and wished one of them would lob it again. He was a volley specialist, but the lob he witnessed earlier had touched him in a way nothing else had before. Perhaps it was because he had never seen a something  quite like that. Perhaps it was because in some small, secret part inside him, he wanted to leave behind the cumbersome, mortal shell known as his 'body' and fly, just as the ball had seemed to do for one long, special moment.

He never had to bother about his body when he slept. He was weightless during those times, and freed. Freed from restraints, and freed from everything. Everything but his own imagination.

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He dreams the Dream for the first time. He is just a spirit, in this dream, nothing but air, so insubstantial that nothing and no one sees him. And all he does is follow the path of the lobbed tennis ball. Up, they go, towards the boundless blue sky. The ball arcs gracefully and begins it's decent, but Jiroh is happy. There are no obligations in this dream. He can choose to do whatever he wants and he chooses to follow the ball's flight.

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He woke for the third time. This time, though, the other players had roused him from his slumber. Atobe won his match, but their reserve player, Hiyoshi, had lost to the first year Seigaku brat. Hyotei was out of the Kantou Tournament. Jiroh followed the other regulars to the courts with a vague sense of loss that had nothing to do with tennis. He knew he had been dreaming something good, but for the life of him, he could not remember what. All he knew was that he had been happy during the dream. Nothing he ever did when he was awake made him feel the same blissful contentment, not even playing a good game of tennis. That got him excited, but it was just different.

Jiroh grinned as he lined up opposite Fuji, the lethargy and loss forgotten. All that occupied his mind now was the game he had played against Fuji. He was freed from the loss of the Dream and for now, he was content.


End file.
